AmeriCorps cuts would pose major threat to Washtenaw County nonprofits

From grandparents to low-income children, residents across Washtenaw County are being impacted by recent changes to federal AmeriCorps funding.

In late April the Trump administration abruptly yanked funds to a program that supports marginalized communities, seniors, formerly-incarcerated job-seekers, and more. AmeriCorps did this by funding stipends for volunteer positions at nonprofits and community organizations in 24 states and the District of Columbia. 

Across the greater Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti area, AmeriCorps funds and volunteers touch more than half a dozen programs, supporting everything from foster grandparents to climate change mitigation to STEAM education for under-resourced youth.

All AmeriCorps employee-volunteers were effectively laid off as of the April order, but on June 5, a federal judge ruled that officials had failed to notify the public and allow for comment before making the change. That ruling restored grant funding to rehire the AmeriCorps members.

For some Washtenaw County organizations, that period of chaos was enough to destabilize their operations and make them rethink how they use AmeriCorps volunteers, though many are vowing to at least finish out the current year of affected programs.

Derrick Miller, executive director of Ann Arbor-based Community Action Network (CAN), says his organization uses AmeriCorps volunteers to supplement its work, but other organizations would be harder hit by the loss.

"Some organizations are heavily dependent on AmeriCorps volunteers, and if they were to lose that resource, it could result in the program ceasing to exist," he says.
Doug CoombeDerrick Miller.
CAN has used AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers, who are part of an AmeriCorps program that helps nonprofits build capacity by bringing in more donations and expanding programs. 

That's a role that VISTA also plays at Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County (JFS) in Ann Arbor. JFS is the host organization for an AmeriCorps program called Washtenaw Economic Integration and Opportunity. 

Shadin Atiyeh, senior director of employment and economic empowerment programs at JFS, says JFS' capacity-building work with VISTA volunteers involved efforts like building relationships with local employers and creating training sessions to show small businesses how to get into local farmers markets. 

Christine Taylor, senior director of community assistance and nutrition services at JFS, says AmeriCorps volunteers were instrumental in tasks including helping non-native English speakers find employment, helping those same people develop micro-enterprises, and removing barriers to employment like education, transportation, or child care. Taylor says nonprofits often have trouble focusing on long-term growth when they have to attend to immediate needs, and that's where capacity-building grants and programs come in.

"A lot of times in this work, you're putting out fires, so the volunteers do the stuff that allows our programs to grow," Taylor says.
Doug CoombeChristine Taylor.
Loss of AmeriCorps funding will affect many nonprofits' bottom line in a big way. For instance, AmeriCorps volunteers have traditionally worked as "summer associates" in summer camps run by CAN. When those volunteers are taken away, it costs CAN $130,000 in labor replacement costs each year, Miller says.

"The thing about AmeriCorps is that it's highly efficient. The research shows that for every dollar that goes in, there's about $34 of economic impact that comes back out," Miller says. 

Miller says CAN's AmeriCorps volunteers had already been cut from 14 to five well before this year. When the June 5 ruling came down, he was able to invite four AmeriCorps volunteers back, but a fifth had found other employment amid the period of uncertainty about the program.

Olivia Allen is the interim director for the AmeriCorps Returning Citizens program, run in conjunction with Eastern Michigan University's Office of Engagement. She says her organization "can't run without AmeriCorps."

AmeriCorps members in the Returning Citizens program are trained to be navigation coaches that work with local organizations in Washtenaw County that serve those returning to society after incarceration.

"If you're housing- and food-insecure, you can't even think about, say, applying to Washtenaw Community College," Allen says. "So, through our host organizations, we help people that want to access education after incarceration, whether that's community college, technical school, or a four-year university."
Doug CoombeOlivia Allen.
She says barriers for returning citizens range from the lingering stigma of incarceration to unfamiliarity with modern technology after many years behind bars. 

"Our navigators can help them log into the system [and] figure out how to get their transcripts or how to talk to an advisor," Allen says.

Allen is the program's only regular staff member. AmeriCorps volunteers fill all the other roles. Her program will finish out this year, but she can't start taking in a new cohort while funding is in doubt.

Miller says gutting AmeriCorps programs not only puts additional cost burden on nonprofits but also eliminates "the best training tool and pipeline for future human service workers in the world."

"About one-third of our full-time staff are former AmeriCorps members," he says.

He says there's a "very specific kind of training needed" for this kind of human services work, and the training provided through AmeriCorps is "not easily replicable." 

Atiyeh agrees that the program benefits not only clients, but it also provides a "launching pad" for AmeriCorps members' careers.

Miller says CAN has already taken steps to be less dependent on AmeriCorps as investment in the program has declined. That's unfortunate for a number of reasons, he says, including the fact that AmeriCorps volunteers allowed CAN to be the single largest distribution partner of Ann Arbor nonprofit Food Gatherers. CAN distributed about 12% of Food Gatherers' total food stores last year, and served about 14% of all under-resourced families in the county. 

Miller says he doesn't know how Food Gatherers could replace the amount of labor AmeriCorps volunteers provide without dipping into reserve funding. He adds that abruptly ceasing human services funding removes a "safety net of last resort for people already on the razor's edge, and people die in the process, because of policy."

"AmeriCorps is one of the best programs that connects upper- and middle-income people with lower-income people," he says. 

When you sever that link, he adds, people in low-income families can slip through the cracks in that safety net "with the general population none the wiser."

"I can't reiterate enough that AmeriCorps has a positive economic impact and a direct benefit to the region's families," Miller says. "It's a key ingredient in more stable households and future successful families."

Photos by Doug Coombe.